As with MoUs, which are not legally binding, the possibilities are endless. The two companies will study and explore all areas where it is possible to work together, so the extent of collaboration and sharing could equally be high, low or ultimately even nothing at all.

No, we haven’t forgotten the national carmaker’s resultless MoUs with other companies in the past (which include Rover, Volkswagen, Nissan, Detroit Electric and China’s Hawtai), so how do we know this one will bear fruit? “Since I’m now the executive chairman of Proton, I will make it happen,” said former PM Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad with a knowing smile.

Also, we have considerably more details this time round – both Proton and Suzuki have confirmed in their official press releases that the first phase of this agreement will start production at the Tanjung Malim plant in the next 16 months.

While most dream of the future, Jonathan Tan dreams of the past, although he's never been there. Fantasises much too often about cruising down Treacher Road (Jalan Sultan Ismail) in a Triumph Stag that actually works, and hopes this stint here will snap him back to present reality.

It is solely because of Proton that 30 million people in Malaysia suffer. Everybody’s biggest payment per month is their cars as we are paying overpriced cars. Don’t know why Malaysians are excited about low quality Suzuki when 30 years, Proton rogol all of us.

You see, in the 80s or even in the early 90s, you can get a brand new Nissan 130Y or a Toyota Corolla for RM20,000. Now, the same car is RM139,000.

In truth, the past 30 years, car prices have come down a lot globally and have NOT gone up due to inflation. It has come down due to economies of scale achieved by car companies. This is proven by the fact that you can get a brand new purely Japan made top spec 10 airbag Toyota Camry 2.5 in the US for US$22,000. That is about RM60,000. The normal B segment car like the Almera is sold in the US for US$9,999. (RM30,000). Mind you, this is after Toyota and Nissan of the US has made their margin and profits and the US government has collected taxes and duties from Nissan and Toyota. The direct from factory prices is far cheaper. UMW will get the above 2.5 Camry for US$15,000 from their principal in Japan. As our Camry is CKD, the price is even lower than that.

Our cars compared to global cars are completely stripped down. Even basic car in the US got about 20 safety features that the same car in Malaysia does not have. Purposely taken out to cut cost even further and untung more profit.

So, in actual fact, most Malaysians can enjoy cheap and reasonable cars but because of Proton, all the other car prices have been raised up tremendously to protect Proton. Malaysians have already suffered so much. For 30 years, 30 million people suffer so much. We struggle paying for our high car prices all because of one man’s dream of benefiting his friends and relatives and forcing the dying Proton to live with billions of our LHDN money, money which could be used to build more schools and hospitals.

If we did not have Proton sucking money from LHDN, each state can have an addition 10 fully fledged government hospitals and 10 fully fledged government schools every 10 years being built. But all our LHDN money go to the failing Proton. Every year government gives hundreds of million to Proton as form of grants. Every other year, Proton ask RM billions in help. Recently, even under private hands also (DRB) Proton asked the government to give them free few RM billions from LHDN.

Proton also cost us hundreds of billions in ringgit in investments from car companies who moved to Thailand and Indonesia. Car companies got fed up with Malaysia’s MITI for protecting Proton and telling other companies what to price their cars. They got sick and tired of the AP system and how genuine brands cannot get enough APs to import their cars in (like Mercedes, BMW and Honda).

They thought that if they set up their brands and plants in Malaysia, they knew they had to give 30% of their hard earned company free away as well as being told by MITI what to price their cars. They all moved their operations to Thailand making it the AutoCity of the world.

Recently GM announced that they rolled out already 1 million cars from Thailand. Imagine if GM was in Malaysia and we taxed GM RM10,000 per car. Calculate that with 1 million cars. Just from GM alone, we lost Billions in USD. Imagine what will the amount be from other car companies if they had set up in Malaysia?

Because of Proton, we lost hundreds of billion of ringgit in investment and trillions of ringgit from jobs lost. If Malaysia was the autocity of Asia, hundreds of thousands of jobs would have been created for Malaysians. We lost all that. Trillions of Ringgit and hundreds of thousands of jobs. Now, Thailand is benefiting from this trillions lost.

Car companies are flocking to invest hundreds of billions in Thailand despite Thailand being an unstable government, unstable economy and full of bomb blastings and terror.

Yet, global car companies still prefer Thailand. You still happy with Suzuki? This is another rape like when Mitsubishi raped us for 20 years with low quality engines and parts. If Proton was not in Malaysia in the first place, you will have a few hundred thousand ringgit extra in your pocket!

If car is his passion, he should support Proton and tell his whole family to buy Proton. He himself drives most of the time in his Porsche Cayenne. Only to events he will drive an Iriz to show people he is supportive of his product. 90% of the time he uses Cayenne.

All his children use Porsche. Practically his whole family uses Porsche.

If you support Proton, you should make sure everyone including your wife use Proton.

You see Proton is actually a good concept. But when Mahathir created Proton, he made sure every single part of the Proton car is supplied by his crony buddies. Now Suzuki will be the same.

And these crony buddies overcharge Proton by ten times whilst giving poor and inferior parts. That is why your Proton always falls apart and everybody blames quality control. That is the reason also why Proton makes only RM500 per car that they sell. It is solely because of the crony vendors who are overcharging Proton. For example, per car Mat is sold to Proton for RM100 whilst you can buy the same car mat from brothers for RM10.

So, Mahathir can say all he wants about quality being raised with Suzuki but until ALL Proton’s vendors are changed, how can the quality go up?

Mahathir won’t do this. All his buddies have got the contract to be vendors to Proton. Mahathir will just ensure that all the vendors for Proton remain the same. All his buddies and relatives, so why upset his relatives when he can continue his past misgivings?

Proton will still get the same low inferior quality parts it has been getting for the past 30 years and it will still be overcharged by 10 times for each part the vendors supply.

Malaysians have already suffered so much. For 30 years, 30 million people suffer so much. We struggle paying for our high car prices all because of one man’s dream of benefitting his buddies and friends. Until Proton changes ALL their vendors, Proton will be a loss making organisation because it produces super low quality cars due to its vendors supplying Proton Super low Quality parts.

This Suzuki scandal will be the same as Mitsubishi scandal. Until vendors change, this Suzuki will be low in quality as previous Protons.

Malaysians kena tipu big time. Every single model in the Proton line is sold for half the price in Saudi countries.

We Malaysians are subsidising rich Arabs. When we pay RM60,000 for a Waja for example, the super rich Arab pays RM30,000 for the same car but with higher spec, more airbags and more safety features.

Why is a Malaysian Made car, Made for the people of Malaysia, being sold so high in Malaysia?

The whole purpose Mahathir gave birth to Proton in 1985 was to give an affordable car to fellow Malaysians. Proton cannot hide by the fact that taxes are high.

The spirit Proton was created was to help Malaysians. That is the whole reason of its inception. But it is not helping Malaysians. Because of Proton, all other car brands have artificially been going higher for the past 30 years. They have been strictly told to do so.

And parallel, the Proton car price also have been going higher as well to follow suit the other brands who have been strictly directed to sell at a high price.

So, what is the purpose of Proton’s inception in 1985? It is not helping the rakyat at all because, as we know, globally, car prices are so low and cheap.

It is high time we question, whether Proton needs to close down or not. Proton defeats its purpose of birth. In 1985, Mahathir promised everyone that the car would be cheap and affordable to everyone.

Well, the car is cheap in Saudi, at 50% the price. Why can’t we benefit from this price?

“We must work hard. We must focus in our work. We take pride in our products and must deliver excellent quality. Only then, we can enjoy our remuneration for the hard work done. We must aim to be more hardworking than our other Japanese car plants”

All corporations exist to make money. I care not who hires me so long as I get the job I want. However, GLCs spit on me because of my skin color in the name of ‘Ketuanan Melayu/Islam’. This is why the nons hate Proton. Understand?

Despite our love hate relationship with Tun, I got to take my hat off for this 90 year old man. At his age, just where does he get all the energy for all this…
You certainly can’t accuse him of sleeping..

from the look of all things in msia, all depend on this old M….govt going under wt 1mdb issues…proton need soneone to lead…all still depend on this 90 year old man, hat off to dr M…looks like the country still need u!

It is pathetic that our cars are so overpriced and controlled by cronies, CKD manufacturing plants, and AP holders
DRB Proton, Lotus, Suzuki, Honda, Jeep, Volkswagen, Audi, Isuzu
UMW Perodua, Toyota, Lexus
NAzA Kia, Peugeot, Citroen, Chevrolet, Ferrari, Maserati, Koenigsegg
Sime Darby Hyundai, Ford, BMW, Jaguar Land Rover, Porsche
Tan Chong Nissan, Renault, Subaru, Infiniti
You’ll get the idea…
It is my choice not to support them and sacrifice a new car smell for a used CBU German car with a reliable independent workshop.
I mean you can buy a used E65 7-Series and W220 S-Class for the price of a brand new Iriz or Myvi.

If me the boss me will start by sacking the entire managment tim for coming up wit such a ridiculous lousy strategy: ignoring yur greatest strength (Persona and Saga) and wasting hundreds of millions to try to compete with models such as Supima ( priced so near to popular jap models) and than choosing to fight Mivi wit the ugly Iruz and now tis…and marketing tried to sell by boasting about safety, just look at Volvo

The only reason why Proton is in existence today is because of him. So logically when he can’t care for Proton anymore it will ‘close shop’ as you put it. Probably another decade or so, just wait till then!

Most likely not mazda, スバル/ イスズ since トヨタ cant have P1 bring down their ダイハツ baby P2… after スズキ there’s no other 日本 brands for P1 to partner with so do die P1 is in their final straw. VW AG sentiments can already be seen with the failed talks, so executive market tie ups is out, only left is budget market JV’s with இந்திய or 华人 brands which means P1 is forced to compete with P2 on home turf, until it’s completely eaten up by other autohouses. If P1 have any senses left and could swallow their pride, they would move to commercial and recreational vehicles. These are cash-cows and could sustain the business until actual good engineering of their passanger fleet could be revered.

You think the Japanese are stupid. Why should they help
you to compete with them
All your MoU with other carmakers are fruitless because
Proton is only a village champion with near zero international sales while other carmakers have sales all over the world.

True Suzuki would probably be the first Japanese car company to die in this decade or next. This would be followed by Mitsubishi, another dying cat company that doesn’t even have enough resources to build their next Lancer!

On what basis you say Suzuki won survive?
Please do some research on Suzuki and you will know despite competitions, their share price still outperform the market benchmark and they are making good sustainable profit.
They have very strong hold in India, one of the largest market.
Just because they didn’t make headlines in terms of technology and new model, doesn’t mean they are irrelevant. Not everyone can afford the next big thing.

Hello Kawan, Suzuki is dying man, just because they are selling well in India, doesn’t mean Suzuki is doing well, Chrysler shares were at all time high, when they announced the company is in dire straits and had to either merge or be bought over to survive.

Suzuki has big problems, that’s why they produced the Kizashi to expand their revenue, but because they couldn’t design a proper D segment chassis, they are losing out due the high cost invested.

Err.. I assume you are a financial analyst? lets exchange notes.
ALL market research that I come through show the company is in great health…
An analysis of their 2014 Balance sheet to calculate the Z score showed an “8”.
Do you know what an “8” means? Anything above 3 is consider unlikely to face financial distress. And they have very good debt-to-revenue ratio.

Proton is a vehicle to feed the cronies. With such high priced, low quality components, they couldn’t produce anything to compete with the global brands.
Do tell me how they could spend RM hundreds of millions on R&D to come up with a rebadged Lancer?

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